Libyan forces launch attack on final Gaddafi stronghold

NORTH OF BANI WALID, Libya – Libyan forces who have launched an assault on the last holdout towns of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists were still meeting resistance in one desert town on Sunday, and said they had edged towards the ousted ruler’s birthplace Sirte.

“We are inside Bani Walid, we control big chunks of the city. There are still pockets of resistance,” one fighter named Sabhil Warfalli said as he drove away from the front line in the town 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli.

He said pro-Gaddafi forces were now concentrated in the central market area — an account backed up by a resident named Khalifa Telisi who had telephoned a family in the town.

“There is still resistance from the central market. All other parts of Bani Walid have been liberated,” Telisi said. “Another revolutionary battalion is coming in from the south. Gaddafi forces are scattered. It is a matter of hours now.”

A pro-Gaddafi local radio station appealed for the city’s 100,000 people to fight to the death.

“We urge the people of Bani Walid to defend the city against the rats and armed gangs. Don’t back down. Fight to the death. We are waiting for you. You are just a bunch of gangsters. God is on our side,” an announcer said in language that echoed that used by Gaddafi in recent broadcasts.

Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) is trying to capture Gaddafi’s last bastions and find the fugitive leader to assert its grip over the vast North African oil-producer and begin a countdown to elections and a new constitution.

Gaddafi troops firing rockets and mortars have fought back against fighters trying to push into Bani Walid for two days.

“There has been ferocious resistance from them at Bani Walid,” Jalil al-Galal, an NTC spokesman in Tripoli said.

The NTC sent experienced reinforcements to join the fight, but fighters said they were awaiting a go-ahead from NATO, whose warplanes hit Gaddafi positions in the area on Saturday.

“Yesterday we set up checkpoints in Bani Walid but had to leave after NATO told us to do so. Today we’re waiting for their green light to go back in again,” said a 42-year-old fighter named Abdenabi Abdulrahman outside the town.

NATO says it has no contacts with the NTC, but confirmed its aircraft had been in action the day before.

BATTLE FOR SIRTE

Gaddafi’s loyalists also control Sirte, which sits on the main east-west coastal highway, effectively cutting Libya in two. Advancin NTC troops said the front line was now about 90 km east of the city.

Fighters were firing tanks and howitzers amid the sound of heavy machinegun fire and the roar of NATO warplanes overheard.

“There were clashes this morning and Gaddafi forces were firing Grad rockets, but we managed to advance a little bit and we will enter Sirte very soon,” said fighter Salah al-Shaery.

The pro-Gaddafi towns still holding out, as well as the uncertain loyalties of the vast desert interior, undermine the NTC’s efforts to show it is firmly in control of the country.

NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, a former Gaddafi justice minister who has run the council from the eastern city of Benghazi, arrived in Tripoli on Saturday for the first time since bands of anti-Gaddafi rebels captured it on Aug. 23.

“Brotherhood and warmth — that’s what we will depend on to build our future. We are not at a time of retribution,” Abdel Jalil declared. “This is the time of unity and liberation.”

The NTC has said it will complete its move to Tripoli this week, although previous timelines for this have slipped.

MONEY AND GOLD

Establishing a credible interim government in the capital would mark an important step for Libya, where regional and factional rivalries among forces united only by contempt for Gaddafi could trouble efforts to reshape the country.

The NTC also promised to resume oil production, virtually stalled since the civil war began six months ago, within days.

But Abdel Jalil said Libya could not yet be declared “liberated” from the man who ruled it for 42 years.

“Gaddafi still has money and gold,” he said. “These are the fundamental things that will allow him to find men.”

The NTC had given the main pro-Gaddafi towns — Sirte, Bani Walid and the remote desert outpost of Sabha — until Saturday to surrender or face attack. Fighting around Sirte and Bani Walid erupted a day before the deadline.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters believe one or two of the ousted leader’s sons may be holed up in Bani Walid. Some NTC officials have even suggested Gaddafi might be there. Others say he may be hiding deeper in the Sahara.

Several former Gaddafi officials and generals have fled across the vast desert to neighbouring Niger. The toppled leader’s wife and three of his children found sanctuary in Algeria last month.

Some civilians managed to flee Bani Walid on Sunday.

“We live right in the centre. I’m scared. We are leaving because we want to be on the side of the revolution,” said a man in a car with his wife, children and other relatives.

“For six months I couldn’t get out. There is no food. People are trying to bring us food and medicine but Gaddafi gangs turn them away,” he said, referring to efforts by civilians to bring supplies into the besieged town.

The original plan was for local fighters to enter Bani Walid to reassure residents and to encourage Gaddafi fighters to lay down their weapons and stay indoors.

But NTC officials, who first estimated they were facing only 150 Gaddafi loyalists, now say their opponents number about 1,000 after an influx of extra men from other Gaddafi strongholds such as Sirte and Sabha.

“Last night the enemy fired many Grad rockets and mortars. We were under a hail of Grads. We don’t know what we’re going to do now. I have to admit, they have more experience than us,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, a local anti-Gaddafi fighter.